CHAPTER 53- Coronation Ceremony (3)

Everyone who witnessed the scene was having different thoughts in their heads.

While the Dukes were thinking just how the new emperor would keep his empire from falling if others attacked, Ellaine was looking at him with disbelief.

She didn't believe for once that he didn't have an affinity.

'Yes, he must be hiding. That has to be it.'

She didn't know if it was even possible to hide one's affinity from the stones, but she couldn't believe that someone with no element could have that kind of aura.

Having no element practically meant he couldn't use his mana in battles.

Isis and Ambrosia were feeling extremely sad for him. They didn't care what element Ray had, and they would cheer him on either way, but they wanted to console him if he felt bad, and knew that people might question him down the way.

Same was the case for Adrianna and Rachel looking at him.

However the commoners and nobles didn't know what to do.

They were extremely mesmerized by the aura and the demeanor of the king, but they were conflicted now.

Was a king who couldn't use mana really able to defend them if other kingdoms attacked?

However amidst all this Ray didn't change his expression.

Unlike what others thought, he didn't hide his affinity, after all he really didn't have an elemental affinity.

Now here lies a question.

Why do people have specific affinities?

It's because of their mana core.

To use mana, the human body of a mage absorbs surrounding mana, the mana core converts the mana into the element it is most compatible with, and then outputs that specific elemental mana.

In other words, it's the mana core that belongs to a specific element.

If someone had a mana core that was compatible with fire and ice, he would be a dual elemental mage able to use both these elements.

Having no affinity meant someone couldn't use an element and people would pity that individual.

However to Ray who had seen thousands of ways mana was used in his previous life, this was nothing but a lie.

Since his mana core didn't have an affinity, he could use pure mana from the surroundings as he wanted.

Pure mana in his opinion had a lot of applications… enhancing the body, controlling objects with mana like an invisible string, with high enough control he could even solidify pure mana and use it as a shield.

To him, having an elemental core was not something good, but a downgrade.

And above all, if he used his 'Growth' skill and grew his mana core to the SSS rank, he would become truly powerful.

At that point, he could absorb all kinds of mana around him and use it as it is.

People showering him with fireballs or ice spears? Not a problem, his core would absorb it and convert it into pure mana for him to use.

However this was not a theory that people knew yet. Using pure mana needed massive control, and Ray had it. In his third life, he had learned this method from the Dragon King, however then he was already quite old and couldn't grow his core to the needed level.

And there was another theory but this one was something he and Ambrosia had come up in his second life but then discarded.

However now he would attempt to try it.

With an element less core, by slowly resisting attacks against other elements of mana, he could grow his mana resistance.

For example if he slowly tortured himself with fire element mana, or breathed poison element mana slowly for over an extended amount of time, he would start growing resistant towards it.

But could he become immune? That was a question to be answered in the future.

He didn't use this torturous method in his past lives but…

'This time it would be different…'

At this moment, five people sitting in the venue had completely joyous expressions.

'This will be easier than we thought…', one of them thought.

He used a skill to send a signal to the Duke without others knowing.

The Northern Duke who was sitting with an odd expression suddenly felt a message intruding his brain and looked back at the five people.

They smiled at him and nodded while they slowly started shifting in their position.

While they thought the stiff expression on the Duke's face was because he had to betray the empire, the reality was entirely different.

'Why are those ants smiling at me? Do they really want to make a scene now? Thank god I didn't work with them!'

At this moment, Ray who was near the affinity stones suddenly saw a dagger fly towards him with immense speed.

The dagger that appeared almost as a blur to most people was slow to some present.

Ray, Ambrosia, Isis, the Dukes and a few others could easily see the dagger being thrown by one of the people sitting at the side wing to harm the new king.

Ray couldn't dodge it; the imperial guards behind him would be hit and probably die.

He couldn't use a weapon, it wasn't fast enough.

Looking at the situation which almost appeared hopeless to some, he smiled.

'Thanks, I'll be able to give everyone a show…'

This was perfect opportunity to showcase his mana control.

Using all his concentration, he controlled the mana in the surroundings to compress it and form an invisible wall in front of him.

The dagger which was approaching with extreme speeds was suddenly stopped mid air.

Everyone watching the scene opened their eyes in shock.

Especially Ambrosia, who loved researching in mana.

'That's definitely a dense wall of mana, but how is this possible? How can he use pure mana?'

The five people were immediately about to rush to him and a commotion was slowly arising among the nobles, but before the imperial guards could even move, the aura from Ray's body exploded and almost everyone was forced on their knees.

"Celestial court mage, Ambrosia Raia, this is my first command, protect the people."

This was the first time Ambrosia had been called by her name by someone other than her sister.

However she knew this was Ray speaking as an emperor, not her nephew, and while she was about to incinerate the person who did this, she understood what Ray was playing at and knew he could defend himself.

"As you command, your majesty."

She turned towards the nobles and raised her right hand.

*Snap*

A magic circle immediately lit up and covered all the wings of the seats, separating them into groups preventing them from being attacked by imperial guards who were getting extremely agitated.

The nobles were shocked at the amount of preparations the king had made for their security and the commoners who were watching the event with horrified faces and had slight doubts about their king instantly changed their perception of him.

'The first command he makes is to protect the people!'

'His life is in danger, but he prioritizes the lives of his subjects!'

'He isn't a coward; he can block such a fast attack without any warning!'

In everyone's mind, the image of a selfless king named Ray Celestia had been planted, and slowly it would only grow.

At this moment, among the people in the special invites wing, where the five attackers were from, a man with grey and black hair looked at the scene with growing annoyance.

'Tch. Plan A has failed…'

With that, he took out a tiny black communication device and whispered.

"Everyone, create as much chaos as you can."

'We have to go for plan B and make Number 15 infiltrate the palace…'

Immediately as the communication ended, people began moving everywhere.

With flashes of light everywhere people began pulling out weapons from their storage rings.

This included people from the central wing where a few marquises,counts and even a few directors of academies and guild leaders pulled out swords, spears, daggers and all sorts of weapons, about to stab innocent people next to them.

In the right wing where the people from the palace stayed, the finance minister and a few butlers and maids also did the same and swung their weapons.

This same phenomena was happening everywhere.

The imperial guards, the left wing and even some of the guards standing near the doorways of the events hall turned on each other.

The people who were unaware of the situation knew they would die soon without being able to defend themselves in time.

The commoners watching the broadcast had fear plastered on their faces.

It was like watching the fall of their empire.

If so many nobles and people from the palace died, the hierarchy would completely fall apart. Random people would try to usurp the empty noble lands and every other empire would try to invade their empire which was already weakened.

And among all this commotion, Ray had an amused expression.

'I didn't think they would have so many people already loyal to their association…'

Even he didn't think that the number of people betraying the empire would be so high, but he didn't care.

'The more people you have, the better I can show off.'

"Huff…"

With a deep breath, Ray collected all the mana in his core and concentrated it in a single point.

Even with his immense control he felt his core shaking.

This was an extremely difficult thing to pull off. If he made one mistake, his core would shatter.

However he didn't make mistakes.

When the mana was condensed to the limit he exploded it out in all directions along with raising his pride aura to its limit.

*BANG*

A massive surge of mana swept the entire palace.

Everyone who had just pulled out their weapons felt their whole body shake and their weapons flew out of their hands.

However this skill didn't discriminate.

Everyone, traitor or not, felt themselves being pushed by a massive force. Some fell down completely, some were stunned for a few seconds while some like the Dukes were only stunned for a fraction of a second.

No matter how anyone was affected, everyone looked at Ray with shocked expression.

The person who had just commanded these people to create chaos felt a bad premonition as he cursed inside.

'How is this possible… this…'

Ray looked down at everyone with an indifferent expression and commanded to no one in particular.

"Kill everyone who dared to pull out their weapons here."

To the utter horror of the people who did it without thinking too much and even surprising Ray a little, the impact of these words were much greater than anyone could have imagined.

The Northern Duke, Ono Kazuo immediately thought all these people were somehow also related to what happened to his wife, and all his rage exploded as a massive claymore appeared in his hands.

The West Duke, Dray or rather Ermes Hadwyn thought this was the perfect opportunity to show his stance of peace to the emperor and with a smile a violet mist of illusion and hypnosis started floating around his body.

The Southern Duke and Duchess who were extremely sad seeing that some marquises and counts from their territory were also among the traitors, pulled out their swords and rushed forward.

And surprising everyone, the East Duchess who always stayed neutral and never took any visible action had an odd expression on her face as she was looking directly at the person who had launched the dagger at Ray. There was a massive orb of pure destructive mana floating behind her which made chills run down everyone's mind.

Ambrosia who was standing there turned towards the imperial guards who were traitors and activated multiple magic circles at once.

Isis stayed on the alert to immediately heal anyone who was injured and from the right wing, old man Wilfred stood up with a book in his hand. As the glyphs in the book started glowing, chains flew out and started binding the traitors near him.

All hell had broken loose.

It was not a fight, but a massacre, and at a scale much greater than Ray had imagined.

The commoners were awed that the new king had with one sentence completely turned the situation around, while the person who had commanded all this was about to go mad with frustration.

Ray, standing amidst all this chaos had no visible expression, but he was laughing internally.

'It has been a long time since I saw this much blood… now this is a purge worthy of going down in history!'